Taken by the Alien Next Door (Aliens Among Us #1) - Tiffany Roberts Page 0,101

there was so much more to what he’d done. There’d been so much restraint despite his bristling fury. She understood the truth of it now that they were out of the situation—he could have killed those men with minimal effort. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d exerted more energy holding himself back than he would have if he’d opened the flood gates and let his rage out.

He could have simply ignored them. As he’d admitted, he’d not really understood what the men had meant beyond their insulting tones. But it had been her pain that had set him off.

Screw waiting three more weeks. Tabitha knew what she wanted.

She wanted Zevris to be hers.

Twenty-Two

The steering wheel creaked as Zevris tightened his grip on it. His jaw was clenched with teeth-shattering force, and the muscles of his arms were so tense they ached—in no small part due to the exertion of preventing himself from crushing the steering wheel outright. Somehow, he kept himself from slamming the accelerator to the floor.

He’d already done enough to risk drawing unwanted attention tonight.

Fire roiled inside him, stoked by a sinking sourness in his gut. His breaths came in harsh bursts that seemed even to him more like the snarls of an agitated beast. Unspent energy thrummed in his limbs, coursing to the tips of his fingers, toes, and tail before racing back to his thumping heart. He’d never been so affected by combat, not even the first time he’d killed.

An althicar always conducted himself with precision, control, and deliberateness. He’d maintained that through every mission he’d ever undertaken, had prided himself on it. But tonight, he’d been dangerously close to losing control.

I did lose control. The instant I turned to confront them.

He’d never had to operate under such restrictive rules of engagement—and he’d never fought in defense of his female’s honor.

But this wasn’t just any female. This was Tabitha. His Tabitha.

How could he not have lost control? Those men had said hurtful things to Tabitha, deeply hurtful things, and they’d done so without provocation. Zevris could have ignored any insult they might’ve hurled at him, but he could not tolerate anyone insulting his mate.

And when he’d turned to face those men, when he’d finally looked them in their eyes, he’d realized that he knew one of them. Cody Everton. Tabitha’s ex-boyfriend.

A low growl rumbled from his throat, and he squeezed the steering wheel tighter.

“Zevris?” Tabitha softly inquired.

His lips peeled back, and a shaky, hissing breath escaped through his teeth. His words pained him before he even let them out, but they were necessary. “Not now.”

He couldn’t trust himself at the moment—he didn’t even feel like himself.

Because even though he’d managed to avoid killing those men—thus protecting his cover by a razor-thin margin—he’d wanted to. Even now, he was battling the urge to turn the vehicle around, to go back to the scene and track those men down—to track Cody down. The pain that man had caused Tabitha had not yet been avenged. His suffering had been too brief, to limited. Zevris craved true justice, and he was sorely tempted to truly finish what Cody and the other men had begun.

It was either that or give into an even stronger urge—to pull over on the side of the road, tear Tabitha’s dress off her luscious body, and claim her now.

The drive back to Zevris’s dwelling passed in a blur. He was aware of the road before him, of countless headlights and taillights of other vehicles, of shadowy trees and lit-up buildings, was even more acutely aware of the silence within the cab of his truck, but he navigated based purely on instinct.

It felt like either a thousand years or ten seconds had passed when he pulled into his driveway.

“Stay,” he commanded as he shoved open his door and climbed out of the truck. He closed the door behind him, barely stopping himself from slamming it, and drew in a deep breath.

It did little to ease him.

Zevris walked around the front of the vehicle to the passenger side and opened Tabitha’s door. Somehow, he kept his hand steady when he held out to her.

She placed her fingers in his hand and looked at him curiously as she stepped down. As soon as she was clear of the door, he closed it as gently as he could manage.

The feel of her warm, soft little hand in his was nearly too much to bear. He released it, turned, and stalked toward the front door of his dwelling, the heat